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Dexter's Laboratory
|last_aired = |num_seasons = 4 |num_episodes = 78 |list_episodes = List of Dexter's Laboratory episodes |related = What a Cartoon! Show }} Dexter's Laboratory (commonly abbreviated as Dexter's Lab) is an American animated television series created by Genndy Tartakovsky and produced by Cartoon Network Studios (also co-produced with Hanna-Barbera from 1996–2001). The show is about a boy named Dexter who has an enormous secret laboratory filled with an endless collection of his inventions. The series premiered in the United States on Cartoon Network on April 28, 1996 and ended on November 20, 2003. As of 2006, Cartoon Network's sister channel Boomerang has been airing re-runs of the series. The series initially debuted on the What A Cartoon! show as a cartoon short and later became the first of said program to be adapted into its own series. Each 22-minute episode consists of two to three segments (with the exception of the initial series finale). Dexter's Laboratory originally ended in 1998 after 52 episodes, but it was later revived for a TV movie, and, even later, 26 more episodes featuring a different production team. Dexter's Laboratory is notable for helping launch the careers of several cartoon creators such as Craig McCracken, Seth MacFarlane, Butch Hartman, Bob Boyle, Scott Fellows, and Rob Renzetti. As of March 30, 2012, this series has returned to Cartoon Network in re-runs on the revived block, Cartoon Planet. Plot The series revolves around Dexter, an eight-year-old genius boy, who has a secret laboratory (which he pronounces with a stress on the second syllable, luh-BOAR-uh-tor-ee) filled with highly advanced equipment hidden behind a bookshelf in his bedroom. Access to this never-ending laboratory is usually achieved by speaking various passwords or by activating hidden switches on his bookcase (such as pulling out a specific book). Dexter is normally in conflict with his ditzy older sister, Dee Dee, who always mysteriously gains access to his lab no matter what he does to try to keep her out. Dee Dee eludes all manner of security and, once inside, delights in playing in the lab, often destroying all of his creations and often by pushing the wrong button(s) on an invention. This is often preceded by Dee Dee asking "Oooooh, what does this button do?", without waiting for an answer. Despite her hyperactive personality, Dee Dee sometimes makes more logical decisions than Dexter, or even gives him helpful advice. Dexter, though highly intelligent, often fails at what he has set out to do when he becomes overexcited and makes careless choices. He manages to keep the lab a secret from his clueless, cheerful parents, who amusingly never notice any evidence of the laboratory, even when it was right before their eyes. Despite coming from a typical all-American family, Dexter speaks with an accent, a reference to Tartakovsky's own accent that he spoke with during childhood. Despite the fact that almost all of his inventions have highly sophisticated computer and electronic components, the assembly of the devices usually involves tightening a large nut with a wrench and/or pouring green and purple chemical liquids into each other. The final component of most inventions is a hand-held remote control with a large red button and radio antenna. Dexter has an arch-nemesis, a boy from his school named Susan Astronomonov who dubs himself "Mandark", who lives down the block from Dexter and has a secret laboratory of his own. Mandark's schemes are generally evil and are designed to gain power for himself while downplaying or destroying Dexter's accomplishments. Dexter often makes better inventions than Mandark, but Mandark tries to make up for this by stealing Dexter's inventions. Mandark is also in love with Dee Dee, though she prefers to ignore him and never returns his affections. As the series progressed, Mandark's schemes became significantly more evil, his laboratory darker-looking, industrial and angular, in contrast to his original brightly-lit lab which had more rounded features. Continuity is not generally an aspect of the show, and many episodes are self-contained or leave characters in predicaments that are left unresolved and never referenced afterward (e.g., the entire lab is completely destroyed,Dexter is turned into a sandwich, etc.). Most episodes end in disaster because of a flaw in Dexter's logic or in his inventions. Dexter usually fails at what he has set out to do with Dee Dee often besting him. The shorts occasionally chronicle the adventures of other characters besides Dexter, Dee Dee, and Mandark. Chief among these were Dexter's pet monkey, Monkey (who secretly lived a double life as a crime-fighting super-powered secret agent), and Dexter's favorite superhero, Major Glory. Both of these characters were often associated with a superhero team called The Justice Friends, which included the superheroes Valhallen and The Infraggable Krunk. Production Dexter's Laboratory was inspired by one of Genndy Tartakovsky's drawings of a ballerina. After drawing her tall and thin shape, he decided to pair her with a short and blocky opposite, Dexter (inspired by Tartakovsky's older brother Alex). After enrolling at CalArts in 1990 to study animation, Tartakovsky wrote, directed, animated, and produced two cartoon shorts that would become the basis for the series. Dexter's Laboratory was then made into a short film as a part of Cartoon Network's What A Cartoon! project, promoted as a World Premiere Toons on February 26, 1995. Viewers worldwide voted on what series should be given a full-time slot; the first to earn that vote of approval was Dexter's Laboratory. The series was picked up for a season of 13 episodes in August 1995. The show debuted as a half-hour series on April 27, 1996, with further promotion by its broadcast on both TNT and TBS as well as the Cartoon Network. Mike Lazzo, then-head of programming for the network, said that the short was his favorite of the 48 shorts, commenting "We all loved the humor in brother-versus-sister relationship." Directors and writers on the series included Genndy Tartakovsky, Rumen Petkov, Craig McCracken, Seth MacFarlane, Butch Hartman, Rob Renzetti, Paul Rudish, John McIntyre, and Chris Savino. Dexter's Laboratory ended its initial run in 1998. The series finale was "Last But Not Beast", which differed from the format of the other episodes in that it was not a collection of cartoon shorts, but was a single 25-minute episode. It features Dexter's family, alongside many of the recurring characters from the Dexter universe, in a battle against a monster that Dexter accidentally released from a volcano as an exchange student in Japan. In this episode Dexter was forced to reveal the lab to his parents, though it ended with their memories being wiped clear of the experience. In 1999 Tartakovsky returned to direct "Dexter's Laboratory: Ego Trip", the show's first special episode, which is currently the only Dexter's Laboratory television movie. This was the last Dexter's Laboratory production that Tartakovsky was involved with and was originally intended to be the series finale. Thomas Chase and Steve Rucker, who were known for scoring many cartoons including the Dexter's Laboratory series, provided the musical score, having created several new musical themes exclusively for "Ego Trip". The special was hand-animated, though the character and setting designs were subtly altered. The plot follows Dexter on a quest through time as he finds out his future triumphs. Christine Cavanaugh later won an Annie Award for her performance as Dexter in "Ego Trip" for "Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting By a Female Performer in an Animated Television Production". The special was also released on VHS and VCD. The series re-entered production in 2001. The new episodes, which ran for two more seasons, had a different production team than the originals since Genndy Tartakovsky was busy working on Samurai Jack and Star Wars: Clone Wars (MacFarlane and Hartman had left Time Warner altogether at this point, focusing on Family Guy and The Fairly OddParents, respectively). This second line of episodes featured noticeably different visual designs, minor inconsistencies with the original episodes both in storyline and in visuals, different sound effects, and Christine Cavanaugh, the original voice for Dexter was replaced with Candi Milo for most of these episodes (as Cavanaugh had retired from voice acting in 2001 for personal reasons, though she still voiced Dexter for the first few episodes of Season 3). Episodes In total there were 78 half-hour episodes of Dexter's Laboratory produced, not including the "Ego Trip" TV special. Three hip hop music videos were also aired on Cartoon Network beginning in fall 2002 as a promotion for the music CD Dexter's Laboratory: The Hip-Hop Experiment. Notably, one episode made intentionally for adults entitled "Dexter's Rude Removal" features excessive use of profane language (albeit censored) and was only screened at certain animation conventions. Due to network standards, the episode has never been broadcast on television. Backup segments In season 1 of Dexter's Laboratory (and a few episodes of season 2), the middle segment would have centered around characters from the Dexter's Laboratory universe other than Dexter's family. Two kinds of these segments were shown, primarily during the first season, running during 22-minute slots: Dial M for Monkey and The Justice Friends. Dial M for Monkey appeared in the first half of the first season, while The Justice Friends appeared in the second half of the first season. Monkey often appeared in the Justice Friends segments and vice versa, having teamed with his fellow superheroes while Dexter and Dee Dee sometimes appeared in the Monkey segments. Dial M for Monkey The Dial M for Monkey shorts feature Dexter's pet lab monkey, Monkey (vocal effects by Frank Welker), who, unknown to Dexter, has superpowers and fights evil with his lovely secret agent and a team of superhero partners. Villains range from a cranky and irritable lava monster that just wants silence because it needs to sleep, to a woman obsessed with making fur coats from endangered species across the universe, to a bounty hunter who wants to kill Monkey for use as a hunting trophy. Monkey's true identity is revealed to Dexter in the episode "Last But Not Beast", although Dexter's memories are erased shortly afterward. The Justice Friends The Justice Friends consists of Major Glory, The Infraggable Krunk, and Valhallen, who are all roommates living in an apartment complex called Muscular Arms. Most of the adventures of The Justice Friends deal less with their lives as superheroes and more with their inability to get along as roommates. Most of these adventures play out like a sitcom along with a laugh track. The segment's title likely derives from the DC Comics superhero organization The Justice League and its sanitized animated cartoon version, Super Friends, though the team itself was clearly a parody of Marvel's Avengers as the three main characters were loosely based on Marvel Comics characters: Major Glory resembled Captain America (though his powers roughly mirror those of Superman), The Infraggable Krunk resembled Hulk, and Valhallen resembled Thor - Valhallen's name was a portmanteau of Valhalla, the spiritual plane of Norse mythology, and Van Halen, an American rock band. Valhallen frequently referred to himself as the "Viking God of Rock", and wielded a wing-shaped electric guitar (referred to as the "axe") instead of a war mallet. These segments crossed over into episodes of Dial M For Monkey. In addition to Agent Honeydew and Monkey, the three superheroes were seen in action along with other superheroes, similar to the large number of Justice League members having appeared in Challenge of the Super Friends and Justice League Unlimited. These additional superheroes were still based on Marvel superheroes (Living Bullet based on Iron Man and Quicksilver, White Tiger based on the character of the same name and the Black Panther, Miss Spell based on Scarlet Witch, Capital G based on Henry Pym aka Giant-Man/Ant Man), with the exception of Ratman being a less-adequate parody of Batman. Justice Friends Major Glory and Valhallen also appeared on The Powerpuff Girls episode "Members Only". Genndy Tartakovsky stated in an interview with IGN that he was somewhat disappointed with how The Justice Friends turned out, saying, "it could have been funnier and the characters could have been fleshed out more." Other media Music CD | Recorded = | Genre = Hip hop | Length = | Label = Warner Bros. | Producer = Karen Ahmed Mike Engstrom Lara Kiang }} The Hip-Hop Experiment is a compilation album released on August 20, 2002, that features songs by various hip hop artists inspired by the series. Heather Phares of Allmusic.com gave the CD a positive review, declaring, "its only drawback is that it's so short." The track listing for the CD is as follows: Video games Four games were released to have tied in with the series: Dexter's Laboratory: Robot Rampage for the Nintendo Game Boy Color (a licensed version of Elevator Action), Dexter's Laboratory: Chess Challenge for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, Dexter's Laboratory: Deesaster Strikes! for the Game Boy Advance, and Dexter's Laboratory: Mandark's Laboratory? for the Sony PlayStation, all published by BAM! Entertainment. Dexter, Mandark, Dee Dee, Dexter's computer, and Major Glory, along with many items, areas, and inventions from the show were featured in the MMORPG FusionFall. Dexter is also in Punch Time Explosion with Monkey as a playable.In the same game, Dee Dee and Mandark act as octopus trainers. Also of note is that in the XL version of the game, Major Glory and Valhallen are new assist characters in addition to Mandark's Lab as a playable stage. The Assist versions of Dee Dee and Mandark show up in XL as well. Home video releases Warner Brothers stated in a 2006 interview that they were "...in conversations with Cartoon Network" for DVD collections of various cartoons, among which was Dexter's Laboratory. The complete first season and the first half of the second season were released in Australia and New Zealand (Region 4) in 2008. A Region 1 release of the first season was released by Warner Home Video on October 12, 2010. The release was the third in an official release of several Cartoon Cartoons on DVD, under the "Cartoon Network Hall of Fame" name. As the segment "Dial M for Monkey: Barbequor" was banned upon its original broadcast in 1996, it has been replaced with two segments: "Dexter's Lab: A Story" and "Changes", a slightly different version of the original pilot. The complete series with the exception of the "Ego Trip" TV special became available on iTunes in 2010. Select episodes from the series were also featured on several Cartoon Network compilation DVDs: *''Scooby-Doo and the Toon Tour of Mysteries'' (June 2004) —"Trick or Treehouse", "Unfortunate Cookie", "Photo Finish" *''Cartoon Network Halloween: 9 Cartoon Capers'' (August 10, 2004) —"Picture Day" *''Cartoon Network Christmas: Yuletide Follies'' (October 5, 2004) —"Snowdown" *''Cartoon Network Halloween 2: The Grossest Halloween Ever'' (August 9, 2005) —"Dee Dee's Room" *''Cartoon Network Christmas 2: Christmas Rocks'' (October 4, 2005) —"Dexter vs. Santa's Claws" Reception In 2009, Dexter's Laboratory was named the 72nd best animated series by IGN. References External links * Dexter's Laboratory - Cartoon Network Department of Cartoons (Archive) * Dexter's Laboratory at Don Markstein's Toonopedia Category:1990s American animated television series Category:2000s American animated television series Category:Cartoon Network Studios series and characters Category:Television shows set in California